Official Travel Dates!

We now have our Consulate appointment, March 24th, and our official travel dates, and our airline tickets.

We will leave for China on March 12th, a day earlier than expected. I should know better than to have expectations with this roller coaster adoption process ;). And we will leave China for home on March 26th.

Time to PACK!

Here we go!

We'll I have BIG news that I have been sitting on because it was tentative till now... but we are leaving for China on the 13th of MARCH! Just two short weeks from today. I can hardly believe it. After all this wait it hardly seems real... But it is. XuXu Lynn your family is coming!


I also have not posted much because I have been busy getting ready to go. Sooooo much to do. :)

We are all so excited, that I really don't have words for the joy.
(Big happy tears right now.)
Children are adopted everyday. It is an ordinary occurrence, but what a sacred moment and a miracle it is when adoption touches you and your family. When God brings people together who are worlds apart and unites them with love.
No words... just joy.

Be praying for us all. We leave on the 13th and will return from China on either the 26th, 27th, or 28th depending on our Consulate Appointment (to finalize everything).

Update on the crisis caused by China's severe winter.

The following is a letter written by Jenny Bowen, Executive Director of Half the Sky Foundation, to thank all those who donated to Half the Sky to help the orphans in China during the most severe winter storms they have had in 50 years. My gratitude to my friends who contributed and or prayed, when I sent out an SOS about the situation.

"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress..." James 1:27 NIV.

Here's the letter:

On behalf of many, many thousands of children who remained safe and warm through China’s toughest winter storms in 50 years, THANK YOU!

The weather has warmed considerably. On Wednesday, all power was finally restored.

Director Liu of the Yihuang County SWI in Jiangxi province called us on Friday. He said that Yihuang was the last place in China to have light again. Thanks to you, the orphanage was able to buy a generator which produced just enough power to light the children’s building. Although one of their buildings was severely damaged by snow and the staff had to fetch well water from the countryside for many days, no one was hurt and all 63 children stayed well. The director called to make sure we all knew how grateful he is for aid from the Little Mouse Emergency Fund.

Our staff in Beijing has had conversations like this one all week long as we made arrangements to wire reimbursement for locally purchased goods to 98 different welfare institutions. Today we are pleased to announce the end of this extraordinary relief effort. From all over the world, this community has raised almost 5 Million Yuan RMB (US$700,000) to protect the children!

Approximately 3 Million is going directly to those institutions which suffered through this disaster. The remaining funds will be used to help all children's welfare institutions establish a store of emergency provisions so that this never happens again. 100% of the funds donated to the Little Mouse Emergency Fund are dedicated to this purpose.

On Wednesday we will meet with Vice-Minister of Civil Affairs, Dou YouPei to make a ceremonial presentation of the proceeds of the Little Mouse Emergency Fund to China’s orphaned children, and to discuss a plan for disaster preparation in the welfare institutions. The Ministry of Civil Affairs understands that this is a gift to the children from people of many nations and they look forward to the opportunity to express their gratitude.

It has been a tremendous pleasure and an honor to be a part of this effort. I understand what “people power” means in a whole new way. When people really care, nothing can stop them from doing what needs to be done.

As of today, the Fund is closed. If there are donations on the way, we will include them in the fund. But if you are considering a gift today, please, instead, support the Half the Sky programs that give children the loving care of family every single
day. Even when the weather is calm.

With love and gratitude,

Jenny

Jenny Bowen
Executive Director
Half the Sky Foundation
www.halfthesky.org

Half the Sky was created in order to enrich the lives and enhance the prospects for orphaned children in China. We establish and operate infant nurture and preschool programs, provide personalized learning for older children and establish loving permanent family care and guidance for children with disabilities. It is our goal to ensure that every orphaned child has a caring adult in her life and a chance at a bright future.

Want to receive our free Half the Sky newsletter, full of stories and photos, via regular mail? Just go to our website www.halfthesky.org and click on "Join our Mailing List."

XuXu's Room

It's so nice to have a nursery again... and the room is not as difficult for me emotionally as I thought it would be. Let me explain...

After we moved Zion to his surf themed "big boy" room, the nursery became a guest room and office for my husband. The decor didn't really change much. The baby things got put away and a desk and office things got put in. There was also a twin bed in there for guests. For years that was what it was.

Well, at the end April of 2007 when my mom finally got out of the hospital after a three month stay (she was fighting cancer... actually an infection that was a complication of the cancer). She came to live with us because she was still too sick to go all the way home, which was in a small town in Northern CA. She was with us for only three days, when her condition deteriorated and I had to take her back to the hospital. From there it was a rapid down hill slide and she passed away on May 2nd 2007.

So needless to say that since then, that room has been difficult for me to spend time in. I wasn't sure I could handle it being XuXu's room at first, especially without radically changing it. Well, because everything is suddenly moving so fast with the adoption we don't have time to change it. So I had to just set it back up. I've added a couple of girly-er touches. So now that it's done it feels like a sweet happy nursery and reminds me of when my son was a baby. Thank God for the peace He provides. And it is somehow a connection between XuXu and my mom... miss you Mom, love you.

First Shower for XuXu

My beautiful prayer group friends, Susan, Christine and Lisa... (that's me on the end.)


put on a gorgeous tea party for me to welcome and help us prepare for XuXu. Family and friends drove in from the LA area and from here in Ventura. They made delicious tea sandwiches and salads, and Christine brought the most adorable Petite Fours for dessert. The table setting was so beautiful with pretty china, silver and pink roses.




XuXu received so many pretty clothes and baby girl things. Having girly things is so much fun... especially for a girly girl such as myself. During the opening of the gifts each guest said a blessing for XuXu and our family. I cried... it is so touching and humbling to hear the heart of your loved ones towards you.




I feel so honored and blessed to have such loving and caring family and friends. I can't wait to dress her in the beautiful clothes and play tea party with the too cute for words tea set my sister-in-law Rita gave her. What a special day that will always be in my heart. Thank you everyone... especially Susan, Lisa and Christine!

A gift for XuXu

After a lot of research on how to send it, we finally decided to send XuXu a care package ourselves. I finally finished putting it together today. We hope she will receive it before we get there. With the severe winter weather China is having and the Chinese New Year Holiday, there may be delays.

I made a little album of family pictures with captions translated by my dad and I made her a baby blanket and I put in a cute little bunny that makes a "boing, boing" sound when you squeeze it. My dad also graciously translated a letter to accompany the gift. I'm so grateful that he is fluent and literate in Mandarin.

Today, I also worked on the gifts to bring to the nannies and orphanage director etc. etc. and a couple extra just in case.
And over the weekend we worked on getting her room ready. Bill had been using that room as an office. So we started cleaning out my art studio so that we could combine his office with it and get XuXu's room ready. I'd say we're about 50% done. There is still so much to do in such a short time.

Such as Packing!! I have a lot of packing anxiety! I am a notorious over packer and can't do that on this trip, but still need to be prepared for everything. How do you do that!?!?!! I'm praying we find out some concrete travel days soon. The guessing is making me nuts. I need a goal line to look at to plan better. Well, we're getting there little by little. It's getting more and more real.

Last summer I found this quote at a gallery in Ojai and felt it described feelings we had for the daughter that we did not yet know, perfectly:
"For a long time there were only your footprints and laughter in our dreams, and even from such small things, we knew we could not wait to love you forever."

Some times I'm overwhelmed by the fact that those dreams will be reality soon.

How Zion got his name.

Here is the story behind my little miracle guy's name.

Two years before Zion was born, when we were trying to get pregnant, we were watching the Grammys. It was the year Lauren Hill debuted with her album "The Miseducation of Lauren Hill". I can't remember if she won the grammy or not, but she did perform. She sang the song "To Zion", which is about her son and choosing to keep him instead of aborting him the way her friends and family advised her. It is a very moving song of a mother's love. After hearing it Bill said to me, "Zion is a cool name." And I said "For our kid?!" I wasn't sure it fit at the time... but we put it on our list of baby names anyway, (which got very long by the way.)

Then we waited and prayed and waited and prayed for years for the stick to turn blue. After it finally did and God answered our prayers for a child, we went about the business of narrowing down our list of names. Finding out that he was a boy at the 20 week sonogram helped.

Now, I love names with meaning. I feel like saying someone's name is like declaring what that means over them and speaking that into their life. So to figure out which names were the most meaningful to us we had about 5 baby naming books and crossreferenced them continually during this process. (Do you see the research theme repeating itself here?)

And now you are saying, "Alright already! What does his name mean?!?" Well, Zion, is a biblical name. In the Bible, Zion is the name of the mountain of God and the city of God, "the place where God dwells". It also represents Christ and the new covenant where Mt. Sinai represents the law. It represents all the redemption and mercy and love God promises us through Christ. As for all those baby name books, the name Zion was in only three of the five, and in those it meant "promise" and "perfect".

Once we found out these things about the name Zion, I knew it had to be his name. Especially after all the prayer that had gone up by us and family and friends on his and our behalf to bring him into this world. He symbolized God's promise to us, his perfect provision for our desire to be parents. And calling him Zion would be speaking over him that he IS the dwelling place of God. God will live in his heart. So on August 10th, 2000 (my birthday) on a hill over looking Ventura, Bill said I could make the final choice for his name. (We were still trying to decide between Zion and Max at the time. Bill was not sure he liked such an unusual name.) I chose Zion. And then Alexander for his middle name, meaning "protector of his people". I also liked the alitteration in Zion Alexander Denzel.

When Zion was born later that year on 12-2-2000, he was all that we had prayed for and more. Our little miracle. Our perfect promise.